Rebecca S. Toupal 2001 Spicer Winner

Rebecca S. Toupal, MLA is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Renewable Natural Resources at the University of Arizona. She has a B.S. in Forestry/Range Management from the University of Montana and a Master in Landscape Architecture from the University of Arizona. For her MLA thesis, she conducted an investigation of successful conservation partnerships in the western United States from which she subsequently published an article in the High Plains Applied Anthropologist (Toupal 2000). She has worked with the former USDA Soil Conservation Service as a Soil Conservationist and Resource Specialist on resource conservation and development projects involving rural and Native American communities. She has worked with the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA) for the past three years on ethnohistoric and ethnographic research with Native American groups in the southwest U.S., with Scandinavian fisherman from Isle Royale National Park, Michigan, and with Tohono O' odham elders and comtemporary offiicials in southern Arizona. Her dissertation research in an investigation of the potential use of cultural landscape concepts for natural resource management purposes.

Her teaching experience includes field-based natural resource workshops with farmers, ranchers, Native Americans and K-12 students; as a Teaching Assistant for a graduate-level geographic information system land use planning course, and for an undergraduate course in social impacts on wildlife management. She has guest lectured in cultural resource management and policy for an undergraduate natural resource management and policy class; and in conservation partnerships for a graduate environmental planning class.

Alayne Unterberger 2001 Spicer Winner

Alayne Unterberger is an applied medical anthropologist and full time PhD student at the University of Florida. Her MA advisor and mentor, Dr. Gilbert Kushner, Professor Emeritus at USF, was mentored by Dr. Edward "Ned" Spicer, for whom this award is named. Since receiving her MA in applied anthropology from the University of South Florida in 1993, she has done extensive research with latino populations in Florida. Her dissertation research examines the impact of Mexico-US migration on mental and physical health status in both a sending community (Guanajuato Mexico) and a receiving community (Wimauma, Florida), where she has worked for the last 10 years. Currently she serves as the Student Board Member to NAPA, part of the AAA.

Ms. Unterberger was the recipient of the 1998 USF Department of Anthropology Distinguished Alumni Award and her work with farmworker health has earned her local recognition and two national awards (1998 Sydney Lee Migrant Health Research Award from Migrant Clinicians Network and the 1997 Border Health Education and Training Centers Program of Excellence Award from National Area Health Education Centers). In 2000, the 300 children and parents of the Rural Youth Soccer Association presented Ms. Unterberger with an award for "helping them to make their dream a reality."